Apple this week provided its developer community with yet another pre-release build of its upcoming Leopard operating system update, which remains on tap for a release sometime this month.

Like the build that preceded it, Mac OS X 10.5.2 build 9C27 is reportedly free of known issues. It did, however, add several more fixes to update's now expansive list of over 130 improvements.

Among the latest additions were fixes to Leopard's Finder sidebar, desktop backgrounds, iChat's Bluetooth functionality, Time Machine, and disk space management, according to those people familiar with the software.

Again, like previous builds, Apple is reported to have asked that its developers focus the majority of their testing efforts on about a dozen core system components such as Audio Input, Bluetooth, the Finder, Graphics Drivers and Spotlight.

Joining the growing list of subtle refinements in Mac OS X 10.5.2 are several more significant feature additions, such as support for Remote Disc optical drive sharing on existing Macs, a list view in Stacks, and support for Apple's new Time Capsule backup appliance.

OK, this might be a dumb question (I am blond after all), but in order to become a developer one has to belong to the developer community, which requires a membership fee, is that correct? If that is the case, the only way any one can acquire these Leopard beta seeds is to pay and become an ADC member. Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple. Does that make sense?

OK, this might be a dumb question (I am blond after all), but in order to become a developer one has to belong to the developer community, which requires a membership fee, is that correct? If that is the case, the only way any one can acquire these Leopard beta seeds is to pay and become an ADC member. Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple. Does that make sense?

Not specifically, no. You can become an ADC member for free and gain access to certain downloads (documentation and development tools). To gain access to pre-release (beta) software, however, you do need to have a paid membership. This is intended so that software developers can test their applications against upcoming releases, to ensure compatibility, not necessarily so they can become beta testers for Apple (although this is one of the fortunate side-effects of the developer seeds, and allows Apple to get their pre-releases into the hands of the real-world community).

Frankly, I agree with the philosophy here. Paid members are more likely to adhere to NDAs, 'lest they risk losing access to the tools that allow them to ensure their software is compatible with the majority of users.

OK, this might be a dumb question (I am blond after all), but in order to become a developer one has to belong to the developer community, which requires a membership fee, is that correct? If that is the case, the only way any one can acquire these Leopard beta seeds is to pay and become an ADC member. Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple. Does that make sense?

That is not what you are paying for. You are paying for OTHER tools and support that you can't get without paying.

It just HAPPENS that you also get updates to Mac OS X before the public does so you can test YOUR program against the updates to make sure nothing in your program broke. If you didn't get that, developers would be screaming because their software wasn't ready when the update came out. Or didn't have a chance to have it fixed before an update came out.

OK, this might be a dumb question (I am blond after all), but in order to become a developer one has to belong to the developer community, which requires a membership fee, is that correct? If that is the case, the only way any one can acquire these Leopard beta seeds is to pay and become an ADC member. Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple. Does that make sense?

Don't over simplify benefits, you are not paying for the seeding of betas alone. Developer community comes with many benefits & paying for this is not just an Apple thing, MSN is also a developer community that you pay for though I believe it is less of a community than Apple's.

You are also paying because it allows you to be up on the direction an OS is going so that you can make your products compatible. Yes Apple gets benefits from you testing their betas but they use these communities because of the raised level of trust & technical understanding. Seeding to a bunch of standard users makes no more sense than trying to gain technical know how from a forum full of non-technical people. You can't learn anything about what is going wrong if the people complaining to you don't understand it themselves.

OK, this might be a dumb question (I am blond after all), but in order to become a developer one has to belong to the developer community, which requires a membership fee, is that correct? If that is the case, the only way any one can acquire these Leopard beta seeds is to pay and become an ADC member. Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple. Does that make sense?

While it might seem Apple should be paying developers to help fix their software, it behooves everyone with an interest in better system software and better application compatibility to participate in the process. It costs Apple significant money to interact with developers, and I'm sure an entrance fee helps keep the unproductive chatter to a minimum. The standard ADC membership fee of $500/year includes support from Apple for issues raised by developers, with premium membership fees ($3500/year?) receiving support for more issues and free admission to the annual developers conference. Apple also gives ADC members a modest discount on hardware, which can more than offset the cost of the membership fee. Academics can join ADC for only $99/year and receive hardware discounts, but they do not receive beta seeds. Developers working on applications in critical market areas may be offered by Apple free participation in relevant beta seeding programs but they do not receive hardware discounts.

Remember, the rumored size of the 10.5.2 updates being seeded includes code for both PPC and Intel, as well as graphics drivers for perhaps all Mac models, so the seeds are going to be much bulkier than what will be sucked down by Software Update on a given computer.

While it might seem Apple should be paying developers to help fix their software, it behooves everyone with an interest in better system software and better application compatibility to participate in the process. It costs Apple significant money to interact with developers, and I'm sure an entrance fee helps keep the unproductive chatter to a minimum. The standard ADC membership fee of $500/year includes support from Apple for issues raised by developers, with premium membership fees ($3500/year?) receiving support for more issues and free admission to the annual developers conference. Apple also gives ADC members a modest discount on hardware, which can more than offset the cost of the membership fee. Academics can join ADC for only $99/year and receive hardware discounts, but they do not receive beta seeds. Developers working on applications in critical market areas may be offered by Apple free participation in relevant beta seeding programs but they do not receive hardware discounts.

Thanks for clearing that up (and for not flaming me, I'm surprised so many people jumped on my case for a simple question. Sheesh).

Thus, you are in effect paying to work on a beta for Apple, so you are essentially paying to work for Apple.

One of the nifty perks of being a full member (probably the top level) is you can reserve access to run/test your apps on ALL of Apple's currently shipping machines, plus a selection of older ones as well running current and older OSes. A dedicated beta test farm for developers to try their apps on.

Thanks for clearing that up (and for not flaming me, I'm surprised so many people jumped on my case for a simple question. Sheesh).

I spotted that too. Hopefully my response didn't come across that way. I just assumed that anyone not a part of ADC probably isn't aware of the benefits. Many of the responses seemed to be more like, "you friggin' idiot, how dare you not know everything about the universe."

I spotted that too. Hopefully my response didn't come across that way. I just assumed that anyone not a part of ADC probably isn't aware of the benefits. Many of the responses seemed to be more like, "you friggin' idiot, how dare you not know everything about the universe."

I actually thought the responses were tempered and informative. Which makes sense, because it wasn't a dumb question to begin with--if you are not in the developer community, the only part of the interaction between them and Apple that we hear about is the seeding of OS betas and the like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Foo2

Academics can join ADC for only $99/year and receive hardware discounts, but they do not receive beta seeds.

Speaking of informative...with the retail Academic Discount diminishing (or disapearing) maybe I need to look into joining up... I wonder what the qualifications are...
I hear the discounts are good!

I even know the secret chant ("Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!")

Man, I sure hope it fix's the Mac Pro problems. My dual 2ghz G5 has the freeze on boot / after sleep, problem... which tens of thousands of G5 owners started having at the same time. I was going to replace it with the new Mac Pro, but seems those are even worse with random crash's, graphics distortion, kernel panics, re-booting when waking from sleep and so forth.
To top it all off, Leopard disabled Matshita superdrives, which has left my powerbookc useless to me... and the uproar from my clients who trusted my advise and bought Mac's.
... of course in typical Apple fashion, not a peep or acknowledgment of any issue's.

Yes, 10.5.2 had better be the second coming of Apple. To hell with ipods and phones, movie downloads and other shit... if they let their core business completely fall apart. Time to put the good engineers back on the important stuff, and the interns on the fluff.
My frustration with Apple is reaching it's boiling point.

To top it all off, Leopard disabled Matshita superdrives, which has left my powerbookc useless to me... and the uproar from my clients who trusted my advise and bought Mac's.

I've provided Mac tech support to numerous clients, associates and friends. I've consistently told everyone to hold off on buying a newly released OS until at least 2-3 updates. I've stuck with this no matter how good the reviews are. Not only does Apple have to work out bugs but so do 3-party developers.

Sounds like you need to readjust your advise if you want to keep clients. Very few people truly benefit from having to always be on the bleeding edge of technology.

well, for those in the creative community that use after effects or adobe premiere like myself, i hope apple addresses the catastrophic effects of quicktime 7.4 which rendered AE and premiere useless if you want to actually render out your work. you had to downgrade to 7.3.1 which means you pretty much had to do a clean install because you can't just downgrade quicktime (even with pacifist you're playing with fire). i'd like to see that addressed in the update but i have a feeling it won't be. cinema 4D also has major issues with leopard. these users are major sectors of the mac community...and we aren't happy. i'm frankly already dissapointed in the amount of time that has lapsed between the discovery of the quicktime problem (the day it was made available) and now. there should have been a fix out already.

All I know is that I intend to be the first in line at the newly established 1 Infinite Loop drive-thru window when 10.5.2 is released, and handed out; they are serving coffee too.

If that's true that has gotta be the grooviest thing I've heard in a long time. Shame I live in France. Then again, if 10.5.2 keeps growing like it is it might be quicker for me to pop on a plane to California than download it!

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If builders made buildings the way programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilisation.

Does anyone know whether this latest version offers insights into whether Time Machine will support external hard disks attached to Airport Extremes?

I doubt it, the seeds, from what I have read so far, do not include that functionality. Apple appears to be forcing people to their time capsule hardware solution for this, even though it appears to be the same functionality and was supposed to be in the initial release before they pulled the plug on it a few days before the release.

Regarding numerous posts about beta testers needing to be a paying developer, keep in mind that Apple also uses AppleSeed testers to test these minor (and major) releases. So when writes write about developers getting a new seed, often times regular users who are beta testers will also receive the new seeds.